


Buried In The Armor

by yourcrookedheart



Series: Fanfiction Tropes [8]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M, Sad Pining, Therapy, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-26
Updated: 2018-06-26
Packaged: 2019-05-29 02:35:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15063140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yourcrookedheart/pseuds/yourcrookedheart
Summary: After Steve flees, leaving nothing but a letter and a cell phone, Tony tries to cope. Some days are better than others.





	Buried In The Armor

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the trope 'yearning and obliviousness'. It's... sort of that, sort of not. 
> 
> Title based on Iron Man by Nico Vega.

_You fucking bastard_ , Tony writes. _Steve, you fucking bastard, how dare you_. Then he presses the tip of his pen so deeply into the white sheet that it skids against the desk underneath, and tears the paper before throwing it in the trash, where it lands between crumpled balls of earlier drafts.

Tony’s therapist had told him to write a letter to Steve. So far, it’s been going about as well as the overflowing garbage bin suggests. There’s nothing in the workshop besides the whirring of machines, a faint clicking noise that’s just off from being the tick-tock of a clock. Before, there used to be Pepper to walk in every once in a while, reminding him to drink some water or eat lunch. Now it’s just Tony, and his machines, and his endless thoughts on a B-horror movie loop. The Iron Man become one with his inventions. Not much longer until his heart turns to steel in his chest, though maybe that would be preferable over…

_Steve’s unyielding stare across a battlefield, no enemies but just them, always them, and it was so much easier when they could direct this fury to evil demigods and an overpowered alien or two. Nothing between them now to take the bullet. “I’m sorry it has to end this way”, Steve’s shield burrowing into the suit with a deafening clang, sparks jumping everywhere, into his ears eyes heart and of course Steve’s leaving, he was always going to leave, taking everything and leaving nothing behind except scrap metal._

Tony fires the therapist.

He can’t remember the last time he slept through the night. A collection of bottles amasses on his desk and nightstand, and he realizes it’s bad when Peter shows up on his doorstep one day, his relentless Duracell bunny energy fizzling as he sees the state of Tony’s place. That hurts more than the solitude did, and so he hires a new therapist. She doesn’t tell him to write any more letters, but she asks him to think about pasts and futures, guilt and forgiveness.

He tries that for a while. Somehow, all he ends up with is _Steve, you fucking bastard_.

Throwing himself into his work seems easier than dealing with whatever’s his issue of the day. It’s what he’s always done, and so no one seems to be particularly surprised. Rhodey takes him out sometimes, though never for drinks, and he never asks any questions. Tony’s so profoundly grateful for it he can’t find the words to do the feeling justice. At night, he still lies awake. When sleep does find him, it brings with it a pile of bodies steadily grow in height, at the foot of the hill Steve’s still frame, neck bent at an unnatural angle. _What do you dream of_ , his therapist asks, and he feels his lips stretch into an uncomfortable grin. _Pasts and futures_ , he replies.

He remembers a brief period of time, after the early hostility of their first mission as a team but before the detonation of Ultron, when him and Steve would be something he’d have termed ‘friends’. When Steve would come up to the rooftop of the Tower and they would share a bottle Steve brought, Tony too wary of shattering the delicate understanding to tell him his taste in booze was awful, the two of them talking of everything and nothing. Pasts and futures.

Very rarely he goes up to the rooftop and imagines the chilled wind that used to move through him during those late nights, a wind Steve’s enhanced anatomy didn’t register. He thinks of dropping the phone Steve left him from the balcony, knowing the ancient technology would be no match for gravity, but he doesn’t. Instead the flip phone sits on the desk in his workstation, united with Tony in their endless wait for a call.

His therapist tells him it’s a form of self-imposed penance. He fires that one as well.

The third therapist, recommended to him by a friend of Rhodey’s, abandons assignments for straight-up conversation. Tony hasn’t talked this much since the Avengers were still a thing. He doesn’t know whether it helps when in the weeks that follow Steve lays claim to more of his thoughts than ever before, but at least he’s drinking less. When he goes up to the rooftop now, he brings a good bottle of Glengoyne and lets the memories move through him with the wind.

 _Are you angry at him for leaving, or for not being present the way you wanted him to be in the first place?_ his therapists asks one day, as Tony chokes out a laugh. _Yes_ , he replies.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [tumblr](http://queennsansa.tumblr.com/).


End file.
